1 64 THE UPPER THAMES VALLEY 



that other solitary waterway which leads from the 

 Kennet through the Vale of Pewsey to the Bath Avon. 

 There we left behind the chalk with its characteristic 

 farming for the rest of our journey. The land below 

 the escarpment in this part of the vale is heavy and 

 tends to be wet, the farms are neither large nor highly 

 cultivated, but consist mainly of small grass enclosures 

 producing milk for local markets. It was not until we 

 reached the middle Oolites in the Thames Valley, with 

 their thin brashy soils, that arable farming once more 

 prevailed. There, however, a considerable variety of 

 soils is found, because the strata, which are compara- 

 tively thin and possess narrow outcrops, weather down, 

 some to sands and others into materials approaching 

 clays, though sharp loams containing a good deal of 

 rock predominate, while the clays are tempered by an 

 abundance of calcareous matter. 



We were bound for one of the best-known farms in 

 the Upper Thames Valley, famous the world over for 

 its pedigree stock Shorthorns and Oxford Down 

 sheep though our interests lay more in the general 

 farming than in the very special export trade our host 

 had built up. The breeding of fancy stock, for which 

 our Colonies, America, and the Argentine form the 

 real market, is a business quite outside the operations 

 of the ordinary tenant farmer. Besides that rare 

 endowment, the fancier's eye, it demands considerable 

 capital and a long waiting period before the breeder 

 can build up his reputation and secure prices on a 

 scale which will repay him for the heavy expenses 

 necessary for success in the show ring in first-class 

 company. Mere fashion plays all too large a part in 

 dictating the character of the demand ; moreover, the 

 buyer and even the agent who effects the purchase are 

 themselves advertising, so that the vagaries of prices 



